London Mayor Boris Johnson Sees No Reason Why Marriage Should Be Denied to Gay People: VIDEO

London Mayor Boris Johnson, who cheered us all up in late July with at a pre-Olympics pep rally attended by thousands in which he mocked Mitt Romney, appears in a new video discussing his support for marriage equality.

Says Johnson:

"Hi folks, I’m Boris Johnson, I’m Mayor of London. One of the amazing things about London is that it’s not only got a declining crime rate, declining murder rate, more theatres than New York, less rainfall than Rome but it’s also one of the few places in the country where the rate of marriage is actually increasing and I see absolutely no reason why that happy state should be denied to anybody in our country. And that’s why I’m supporting the Out4Marriage campaign."

Comments

London is not a gay-friendly city. You might see two men walking down a street hand-in-hand in perhaps one or two gay areas but generally it is a gay-hostile city.

As for gay marriage, why have the supposedly open-minded Brits been so late to accept it? There are 6 states in the USA which have had it for at least a couple of years.

Posted by: jason | Aug 20, 2012 8:31:54 AM

Jason, have you actually been to London yourself? Do you even have a passport?

Posted by: Allan | Aug 20, 2012 8:51:08 AM

Don't feed the troll (=Jason).

It's nice to see Johnson so firmly and clearly for it, although he always seemed gay friendly. Another conservative for marriage. I'm not conservative but I think it's important.

Posted by: G.I. Joe | Aug 20, 2012 8:59:03 AM

The Brits have had civil partnerships equivalent to marriage since 2005. The problem with allowing marriage is the establishment Church of England and the repercussions it would have throughout the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion ranges from a liberal US church (The Episcopal Church) to a very conservative set of African churches such as in Uganda. (Remember Uganda? A couple of years ago it wanted to make homosexual acts a capital crime.)

Posted by: Diogenes Arktos | Aug 20, 2012 9:06:56 AM

Jason..The USA may have a small proportion of states that allow civil union and in some cases marriage to same sex partners (I don't like using the term gay marriage because it differentiates it from conventional marriage) but there is NO federal recognition for those unions meaning it is pretty much null and void when it comes to equality. The UK however does support and afford its citizens rights equal to those rights of people in conventional marriage even though the union is not called marriage. As for London not being a gay friendly city I cannot confirm nor deny that claim but the USA is by no means as a whole a gay friendly country, and a lot of states because of their political affiliations and religious views continually fight to deny gay people equal rights, and have a high amount of hate crimes perpetuated against the LGBTQ community. One of the things the UK can be proud of as a progressive country is that it doesn’t align itself with religious beliefs to deny a minority equality under the law.

Posted by: Siobhan | Aug 20, 2012 10:00:07 AM

@ Siobhan :
I totally agree; London is a hell of a lot more gay friendly than many parts of the USA.
And no, "gay friendly" is not defined as being able to hold hands walking down the street !.....for phuck's sake !
And when the USA adheres to the norms of recognition of foreign marriages there will be some semblance of a gay friendly USA, but while this country still thumbs its nose at foreign marriages the USA cannot be described as gay-friendly.